[L&L] Balancing the Wizards in D&D

[Doug McCrae]

Ideally sorcerers shouldn't cast spells. Spells are something you learn in a book. Sorcerers should hurl barely shaped globs of magic.

Historically, D&D's magic styles haven't been distinctive enough imo. Clerics and magic-users cast their spells in pretty much the same way. 3e wizards and sorecerers use the same spell list.

 

[drothgery]

Ideally sorcerers shouldn't cast spells. Spells are something you learn in a book. Sorcerers should hurl barely shaped globs of magic.

Historically, D&D's magic styles haven't been distinctive enough imo. Clerics and magic-users cast their spells in pretty much the same way. 3e wizards and sorecerers use the same spell list.

... though that does run into page count problems; an AEDU 4e class (in a classic-format book) had 15 or so pages of powers. Half the reason why the sorcerer existed in 3.x was because wizard spells took up so much of the book and were only used for one class (the other half was the desire for a caster that didn't memorize/prepare spells).

 

[Doug McCrae]

... though that does run into page count problems; an AEDU 4e class (in a classic-format book) had 15 or so pages of powers. Half the reason why the sorcerer existed in 3.x was because wizard spells took up so much of the book and were only used for one class (the other half was the desire for a caster that didn't memorize/prepare spells).

Yes. I think the 1e-3e casters' spell lists were much too long.

 

[Lwaxy]

*chuckle* I always thought they were too short *stares at the long list of customs spells*

Sometimes I think class resources should be separate from the core books.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Another question aimed mostly at the people who don't like 'at-will' powers - how would you feel if wizards got a choice of, say, 3 out of 10 at-will powers, which included stuff like light, prestidigitation, mage hand and a couple of offensive options?

That would allow someone who hated crossbows to choose light, mage hand and magic zap, while someone who hated at-will zapping to choose light, mage hand and detect magic, say, and tote his trusty crossbow.

Would that be an approach which would work for both camps? Giving a framework which allowed choices to come into it like that?

 

[Sunseeker]

Are you sure about this bit I bolded, or are you merely hoping?

Freudian slip, and the fact that many of my recent posts have been made on my cell-phone with T9-Word.

 

[Hussar]

Yes. I think the 1e-3e casters' spell lists were much too long.

I would largely agree, but, could you imagine the uproar if they went back to, say, Expert D&D, where wizards had 12 spell choices per level (IIRC)? And, funnily enough, even then, the spell section in the Expert D&D rules is still one of the longest sections of the book.

 

[DMKastmaria]

I would largely agree, but, could you imagine the uproar if they went back to, say, Expert D&D, where wizards had 12 spell choices per level (IIRC)? And, funnily enough, even then, the spell section in the Expert D&D rules is still one of the longest sections of the book.

And B/X MU spells only went to 6th level.

I'd be cool with B/X style spells. Throw in the slower advancement and tap it out at 14th level while you're at it.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Would that be an approach which would work for both camps? Giving a framework which allowed choices to come into it like that?

I think a lot of the resistance is that magic that you can do trivially, by its nature, trivializes magic, at least for that character.

If you want magic to be this great and powerful force that a wizard only barely masters, you do not want magic to be trivial.

 

[pemerton]

I'll see the 1-2 spell mage and raise you. The best mage I ran was a commoner pretending to be a mage. And he was always useful; he threw darts and used crossbows- and missed. He threw burning oil- and set the forest on fire. He did all kind of stuff, and every so often he wiggled his fingers and said some nonsense words and "Oh dear, we're in a no magic zone" or "someone countermagicked me".

See, you don't need magic at all to have an effective magic user. I support your making all wizards commoners, because nothing makes magic magical like not being able to do it at all.

This is incredibly awesome. Unfortunately I can't XP you again yet.

Not sure what adjustments could not be made to the system to suit your playstyle with earlier editions. Could you give me an example?

Earlier editions have got no mechanics to support play which focuses on the encounter/situation, and have several mechanics that push against that. Many classes have abilities that recharge on a daily cycle. Hit points recharge on a daily cycle (either via natural healing, or spells). Many spell durations are minutes or tens of minutes per level, engendering a focus on time between encounters rather than events within an encounter. Etc.

Core B/X or AD&D has no mechanics in the PC build side of things that, without more, integrate the PCs into the gameworld (with druids, monks and assassins as perhaps very modest exceptions, because of their advancement rules). For a contrast within the context of AD&D, look at Oriental Adventures. For a contrast within D&D more broadly, look at 4e, in which nearly every race and many classes are defined partly in terms of their relationship to cosmologically and thematically significant story elements (eg to be a dwarf is to be a descendant of slaves of the giants, who served the titans who served the primordials who fought the gods over the fate of the world - choosing to be a dwarf situates directly in relation to one of the key conflicts within the gameworld).

And from a completely different playstyle angle, no edition of D&D (includnig 4e) can do gritty fantasy, because the damage rules don't support it. (Contrast Rolemater, Runequest, Chivalry and Sorcery, etc.)